The Dreamers' Dive

[Balder]

In a back corner of O'Kenny's Pub is a long, old table, well-carved, etched with initials, curious carvings, and countless quadrant diagrams.  In the dim light of an old gas lamp, folks have been gathering here for years to share stories from the subtle realm: dreams, visions, imaginal flights.  Pull up a chair.

[Balder]

What is a Mantiak Moon?  I had a strange, archetypal dream about teaching at a new school.  There was a steep-sloped, deep lake somewhere on the campus grounds; walking around it, I found gold coins scattered along one of the muddly slopes.  There was also a grotto tucked into the shoreline with an old shrine in it.  In the dream, I was told that the gold coins were offered to the Father of the Mantiak Moon.  The Mantiak Moon is the moon you see in a fully cloud-covered sky.  An impossible moon.  When such a moon appears, coins are tossed to the spirit of the father in the deep, shadowy lake, where "everything that bites on earth" has its counterpart in the depths...

[Davidu]

I seem to have misplaced my dream diary from my Dream and Sleep Yoga practice.  I spent hours looking for it yesterday.  Perhaps it's returned to where it arose?  :-0

I'll keep looking...

[Balder]

Oh, that would be perfect for this thread, David!  I hope you find it.  I don't know if I could locate my notes from that period of our practice, either, but I'll look as well...

[Davidu]

In the dream I was returning to the past, walking streets, riding on the bus, going back.  The past was not the same, however.  The same streets didn't go to the same places.  The past had been altered so that my past was only partially familiar as the present had become mixed with the past.  I walked into a department store and one whole vast section had displays of nothing but desserts, puddings and cakes and bowls of sweet cream things, and rich chocolate poured over various delectables.  I was attracted to a bowl of chocolate icing that looked so good.  I reached for it and placed a spoonful of it in my mouth like a lollypop.  It tasted so sweet on my tongue the way I remembered it did as my mother used to make a cake and hand me a spoon with icing on it. 

Then I went into another building, a men's store, and some people recognized me but I didn't know them.  This is a common experience in my everyday life.  I could tell some of them didn't like me for some reason.  Two of them hated me.  But since I was someone important they kept their distance.  Others I met for the first time liked me and they were courteous and pleasant as if I were a valued customer.

As I passed through other buildings and stores of my past the doors didn't open to the same places, things were different.  I walked outside and met an old business acquaintance and began telling him about my Porsche, and I pictured it, but I remember knowing I couldn't get to it anymore.  Then my wife was there and she was telling someone about it, and I remember she got it all wrong. Then my wife and I were sitting in church and she kept looking up at something on the wall above us that meant something to her, but I remember it meant nothing to me. 

[Davidu]

I dreamed I was a  big, reddish-brown grizzly bear.  I moved through the landscape, my world, content doing bear things.  I remember going from woods to fields and clearings.  Then I became mankind looking at the bear and collectively appreciating it.  We led it to a place in the woods to a small clearing in front of a large sign which was a thank-you card.  Mankind knew the bear didn't know what it meant, but loved and appreciated the bear for just being itself and doing its natural thing.  Mankind felt tremendous warmth for the fact that the bear was true to itself and its nature.

[Davidu]

I dreamt I was in a pride of lions and I was the biggest, fiercest lion with the loudest growl.  I growled at the others to keep order.  I was the head lion.

Then I changed to become the creation of all music. I was a fountainhead of music bubbling up from deep in the ground, and I also had a childlike presence.  Greg Allman came to my wellspring with his long blond hair and he said. "I need to learn your song, kid.  I don't have time, I need to learn your song now."  That was the end of the dream

[Davidu]

I had a dream last night I can't really interpret with any confidence.  I was in college and I had a shiny new, luxurious Jaguar.  There was pride in ownership.  I went away for a weekend but couldn't take my car.  I had to park it in the college parking lot.  Then I went on my long trip somewhere down south.  When I returned I couldn't find my Jaguar.  I searched frantically on foot, but it took so much time.  My stomach sank each time I looked in a section of the parking lot and it wasn't there.  I was heartbroken and had to call the police.  I half awakened a few times feeling the sadness and loss.  Then I awakened further I realized I didn't have a Jaguar and I felt relief.  When I realized I didn't have the attachment I was so happy, I just felt terrific!

[Balder]

Wow, very interesting.  I had just been thinking about a similar dream I had long ago, in which I dreamed I was Mozart's mouth.  Time showing us her conductivity...

[Davidu]

I dreamed I was having dinner with the Devil.  The Devil was a rich man who lived in a large house in the wealthy suburb of Philadelphia known as 'The Main Line'.   The Devil was very friendly and charming, like Frazier.  At the dinner table he was telling me about his plans to renovate the large house but instead of adding floors going up, they went down.  He hadn't decided if he was going to add below the eighth floor.  I knew the Devil well and when I was leaving we hugged goodbye so that my head was alongside of his, so I couldn't see his face.  I held him tight as he started to growl because I was afraid of what he was changing into, I started to get angry.  The more he growled the angrier I got as I said in his ear over and over, "Don't do it!  Don't do it!"  Then I woke up angry and jumped out of bed looking in the dark corners of the room.  It was 1:41 AM.

[Davidu]

The underlying emotion was fear turning to anger.  My usual reaction to fearful dreams.  But when I fully awakened it dawned on me that I was, in fact, the Devil.  The Devil even felt like me in the dream.  It illustrated for me how the anger and the fear were my own projections, and I smiled at my reaction to look outside myself in the dark corners of the room. The Devil wasn't there, he's in here!  I went back to sleep feeling everything, not just the Devil, was indeed my own projection.  I wanted to carry that realization into the morning.

Davidu said:

I dreamed I was having dinner with the Devil.  The Devil was a rich man who lived in a large house in the wealthy suburb of Philadelphia known as 'The Main Line'.   The Devil was very friendly and charming, like Frazier.  At the dinner table he was telling me about his plans to renovate the large house but instead of adding floors going up, they went down.  He hadn't decided if he was going to add below the eighth floor.  I knew the Devil well and when I was leaving we hugged goodbye so that my head was alongside of his, so I couldn't see his face.  I held him tight as he started to growl because I was afraid of what he was changing into, I started to get angry.  The more he growled the angrier I got as I said in his ear over and over, "Don't do it!  Don't do it!"  Then I woke up angry and jumped out of bed looking in the dark corners of the room.  It was 1:41 AM.

[Davidu]

Last night I dreamed I had the Lone Ranger's guns.  The Lone Ranger, Roy Rogers and Gene Autrey all owned these twin forty-fives.  They were very special pistols, polished silver with intricate engraving and snow-white, ivory grips.  They had weight and felt substantial in my hands and in the holster against my hips strapped tightly against my thighs.  I was going to use these guns to go after the bad people who kidnapped my girlfriend.  The dream went on and involved various people including my brother, and I realized as I awakened that I was in fact all the people in the dream, I was everyone. That was the end.

The underlying feeling of the dream was admiration for the guns and confidence that I had what I needed to accomplish what I wanted. 

My interpretation of the dream was that it was an illustration of  my becoming familiar with my nature, my 'special guns', and feeling confident that this nature will lead me to the relationship I want with all of existence, where I am everyone and everything, where I will become united with my basic desire for true relationship.  My interpretation feels correct because it resonates with my waking thoughts during the day.

Well hombre, I think I'll ride off into the sunset to sounds of, "…who was that masked man?"

[Davidu]

At the time, more than a dozen years ago, I tried to relate the dream to my waking life prior to the dream.  I said:

I think the sweet dream seems to deal with my attempts to be in the moment, and not drift away in thought, as I try to do in meditation and everyday life.  So that awareness is the sweet thing, and as such has become my desire.  And so I objectified the true subjective.  I think therefore I'm not!

Davidu said:

In the dream I was returning to the past, walking streets, riding on the bus, going back.  The past was not the same, however.  The same streets didn't go to the same places.  The past had been altered so that my past was only partially familiar as the present had become mixed with the past.  I walked into a department store and one whole vast section had displays of nothing but desserts, puddings and cakes and bowls of sweet cream things, and rich chocolate poured over various delectables.  I was attracted to a bowl of chocolate icing that looked so good.  I reached for it and placed a spoonful of it in my mouth like a lollypop.  It tasted so sweet on my tongue the way I remembered it did as my mother used to make a cake and hand me a spoon with icing on it. 

Then I went into another building, a men's store, and some people recognized me but I didn't know them.  This is a common experience in my everyday life.  I could tell some of them didn't like me for some reason.  Two of them hated me.  But since I was someone important they kept their distance.  Others I met for the first time liked me and they were courteous and pleasant as if I were a valued customer.

As I passed through other buildings and stores of my past the doors didn't open to the same places, things were different.  I walked outside and met an old business acquaintance and began telling him about my Porsche, and I pictured it, but I remember knowing I couldn't get to it anymore.  Then my wife was there and she was telling someone about it, and I remember she got it all wrong. Then my wife and I were sitting in church and she kept looking up at something on the wall above us that meant something to her, but I remember it meant nothing to me.